From Arab Folktales by Inea Bushnaq #fairytale #folklore #women #palestinian #mythology

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]The more I read Middle Eastern folklore, the more stories I read about how women are clever than everyone, including supernatural deities, like this one from Palestine called The Old Woman and the Devil. An old woman and the devil placed bets to decide which of them was more skilled at sewing discord and creating sorrow, cuz they were just feeling that bet one day. They go to the market and they go to a butcher stall where a man is buying some meat, but when the butcher gives it to him, he says, "No, you short-weighted me. God commands an honest scale." And the butcher's like, "Are you accusing me of cheating?" The other guy is like, "Are you calling me an unbeliever who doesn't respect God's word?" The devil fans the flames, goads them on until the butcher stabs the other man with his cleaver, killing him on the spot. And so, as they take the butcher off to jail, the devil says to the old woman, "Observe my power. In one instance, I destroyed one soul and dispatched another to prison." The old woman's like, "Yeah, I can do better.

[00:00:50]Follow me." She goes to a cloth merchant and she's like, "Hey, I need the best cloth that you have because my son, God curse him, keeps a mistress, and he always has to take her amazing gifts when he visits her. I, of course, do not want to do this sinful thing to help my son, but he beats me if I don't, so I need cloth for my son's mistress." Cloth merchant is like, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Here is the cloth." She goes straight to the cloth merchant's house, and she knocks on the door, and the cloth merchant's wife opens it, and our girl is like, "Hey, time for afternoon prayers is almost over. Can I come say my prayers inside your house?" And the woman's like, "Yeah, that's fine." So, she lets her in and goes back to cooking dinner for her husband, and our old woman goes and hides that cloth in her closet. The old woman and the devil leave, and she's like, "Watch this."

[00:01:31]Cloth merchant comes home, and when he finds that cloth he sold, he assumes that his wife is the mistress of this chick's son. So, he beats her mercilessly, accusing her of adultery.

[00:01:41]The old woman turns to the devil and says, "All right, what do you think?"

[00:01:44]And he's like, "I think we're equal."

[00:01:46]And she's like, "No, I'm going to show you how I'm superior." So, the next day she goes back to the cloth merchant, and she's like, "Hey, remember that cloth I bought from you the other day? I need another because I misplaced it. I had to say my afternoon prayers and this nice woman let me in her house and I accidentally left it there. So, I need another. And of course, the cloth merchant is like, "Oh, no. She was innocent." And so, he goes home and begs his wife's forgiveness. So, the old woman turned to the devil and says, "Whereas you cannot repair the damage you've done, I can bring peace between these two again. So, who's more powerful?" And the devil said, "I concede. You old women are wilier than the devil himself." It's dark and involves murder and domestic violence, but it's still an uplifting sort of story. Not just because the devil can be outsmarted, but that he's outsmarted not only by a woman, but by an old woman. In our culture today and in a lot of cultures, we don't respect women in general, but we really don't respect older women. They lose their value or whatever. But in lots of old folklore, they are the wisest. They are the smartest. They are the ones who know magic and they are the ones you don't want to mess with and you should definitely want on your side.